 | 1973 Pontiac Grand Am by Bob Hovorka |
Special Interest Autos #140, March/April 1994
From a dead-on front view it looked like nothing else on the road. Many people questioned if different was necessarily better!
Pontiac called it a car with " The feel of a Grand Prix...the response of a GTO...the characteristics you've admired in fine road cars. " Road & Track praised its handling over good roads, but quipped: "When the going isn't so good, it turns out that the big Pontiac develops some pretty standard US car traits. Car and Driver thought " its firmer than typical Detroit ride was great through freeway bends, however off the freeway, on undulating blacktops - the kind with swells and hollows along the verge the high roll stiffness becomes a source of discomfort. "
Just what, then, was this first series Grand Am? Certainly nothing like today's air-dammed, anti-lock versions. It was " GRAND " in the sense of Webster's Dictionary : Imposing. And " AM " as in the Absence of Metric.
During an era when American engines were still rated in good old cubic inches, Grand Am carried 400 as standard fare, and offered 55 more as an option. With a track width only 6.7 inches narrower than the outer edges of its current namesake, and touting over a thousand more pounds of plastic and steel, the original Grand Am may have technically been a seventies mid-size intermediate, but it was no small car!
With escalating " Muscle Car " insurance premiums, and increasing government safety and emission mandates, Pontiac turned Grand Am's tapered prow away from the GTO's rambunctious image towards a more European style sports sedan. Available in either a 112-inch wheelbase coupe, or a 116 inch wheelbase four-door, Grand Am featured reclining bucket seats with adjustable lower back supports in both versions.
Sitting behind a veneered " African crossfire mahogany " dashboard, with a full complement of circular gauges and a flat three-spoke steering wheel, you look across a tapering hood that falls off sharply near its soft, pliable nose. One can't help thinking more of aircraft cockpits than Spartan sports cars, as dashboard merges into a console that completely separates driver and passenger. Although the tall bucket seats tend to limit rearward vision in both sedan and coupe, the coupe's slanting rootline and louvered rear quarter windows add to the problem. Still, there's a definite exhilaration as you slip the key into the ignition switch and turn it. Even in standard form a '73 Grand Am is no slouch. If you're fortunate enough to be sitting in one of the rare Super Duty 455s...it's like holding a missile on a leash.
Sure, there's that inherent early emission system stumble, along with gas mileage only an 18-wheeler could love, but there's also a feeling that can't be duplicated by any of today's hot pocket-rockets. As quick as the new fuel-injected V-6s are, the surge of 400-plus cubic inches silently burying your backbone deep into the seats at launch just has to be experienced to be believed !
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